R v Bawa-Garba
A junior doctor's conviction for gross negligence manslaughter was upheld, despite failings in the hospital's systems, raising concerns about the criminalisation of medical error.
Facts
Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba was a trainee paediatrician at Leicester Royal Infirmary. In 2011 she treated six year old Jack Adcock, who had Down's syndrome and was admitted with sepsis. She failed to recognise the seriousness of his condition and to act on test results, and he died. On the day, she was working a double shift, covering several wards, the hospital's IT system had failed, and there were other systemic problems. She was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter.
Legal principle
The Court of Appeal refused permission to appeal against her conviction, holding that the jury had been properly directed on the test in Adomako and had been entitled to find that her negligence was gross, taking into account the difficult circumstances in which she was working. The case caused great controversy in the medical profession, especially when the General Medical Council successfully applied to strike her off the medical register. In Bawa-Garba v General Medical Council [2018] EWCA Civ 1879, the Court of Appeal restored the tribunal's decision to suspend her instead, and she later returned to practice.
Related cases on involuntary manslaughter
- DPP v Newbury and Jones [1977] AC 500
- R v Adomako [1995] 1 AC 171
- R v Bateman (1925) 19 Cr App R 8
- R v Cato [1976] 1 WLR 110
- R v Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings Ltd [2011] EWCA Crim 1337
- R v Dawson (1985) 81 Cr App R 150
- R v Goodfellow (1986) 83 Cr App R 23
- R v Kuddus [2019] EWCA Crim 837
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